e people. The
cranberry-crops soured on the vines, and times were very scarce.

It was during this period that Captain William Kidd, a New York
ship-master and anti-snapper from Mulberry Street, was sent out to
overtake and punish a few of the innumerable pirates who then infested
the high seas.

Studying first the character, life, and public services of the immoral
pirate, and being perfectly foot-loose, his wife having eloped with her
family physician, he determined to take a little whirl at the business
himself, hoping thereby to escape the noise and heat of New York and
obtain a livelihood while life lasted which would maintain him the
remainder of his days unless death overtook him.

[Illustration: NYE AS A BOY READING ABOUT KIDD.]

Dropping off at Boston one day to secure a supply of tobacco, he was
captured while watching the vast number of street-cars on Washington
Street. He was taken to England, where he was tried and ultimately
hanged. His sudden and sickening death did much to discourage an
American youth of great brilliancy who had up to 1868 intended to be a
pirate, but who, stumbling across the "Life and Times of Captain Kidd,
and his Awful Death," changed his whole course and became one of the
ablest historians of the age in which he lived.

[Illustration: CAPTAIN KIDD ARRESTED.]

This should teach us to read the papers instead of loaning them to
people who do not subscribe.

* * * * *

Since the above was written, the account of the death of Governor
Andros is flashed across the wires to us. _Verbum sap._ Also _In
hoc signo vinces_.

The author wishes to express by this means his grateful
acknowledgments to his friends and the public generally for the
great turn-out and general sympathy bestowed upon his relative, the
late Peter B. Stuyvesant, on the sad occasion of his funeral, which
was said to be one of the best attended and most successful
funerals before the war. Should any of his friends be caught in the
same fix, the author will not only cheerfully turn out himself, but
send all hands from his place that can be spared, also a six-seated
wagon and a side-bar buggy.

CHAPTER IX.

SETTLEMENT OF THE MIDDLE STATES.

The present State of New Jersey was a part of New Netherland, and the
Dutch had a trading-post at Bergen as early as 1618. After New
Netherland passed into the hands of the Du